Of Mice and Men

Voice of the Faithful held a moving prayerful candlelight vigil at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross tonight. We had about 35 people standing in the bitter cold to support "Priests of Integrity" in the Catholic church. Voice of the Faithful decided to hold this to demonstrate our conviction that a vocation to the priesthood is not and should not be restricted by one’s sexuality.

They and I believe that excluding homosexuals from the priesthood is not a solution to the clergy sexual abuse crisis. This was highlighted at the vigil by a woman who spoke about her abuse at the hands of Catholic priest, a heterosexual Catholic priest. She talked about how the Church abused her again by not acknowledging the abuse she endured.

It just shows once again how the Church has failed women. It is bad enough that the church fails to allow women to participate in the rituals of the church, but now the Church has continued to shun those women who were sexually abused by pedophile priests. This whole "gay priest" ban does nothing to address the child sexual abuse committed by the priests nor the enabling the Bishops did to protect these sick priests. It's disgusting!

I wrote a little bit about how the Church is scapegoating gay men and still not addressing its problems in its ranks in September. The good news is that there are still good priests out there, unfortunately, the hierarchy of the Church punishes those that speak out against the abuse.